The effect of language discordance on the experience of palliative care: A scoping review

Shawn P. Dookie; Lynn Martin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0321075

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 18, 2024
18 Nov 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321075.r001
12 Jan 2025 Decision Letter - Weifeng Han, Editor PONE-D-24-51369The Effect of Language Discordance on the Experience of Palliative Care: A scoping reviewPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dookie, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Specifically, the rationale for conducting a scoping review should be explained in the Methods section to clarify its suitability for exploring the breadth of literature and identifying gaps in research on language discordance in palliative care. Additionally, the description of how article selection decisions were made, currently located in the Limitations section, is better moved to the Methods section. This should include details on the criteria used, the decision-making process, and how disagreements between authors were resolved. Finally, the Methods section should provide more details on the data charting and extraction process, e.g., specifying whether the process involved more than one researcher, whether the data extraction spreadsheet was pilot-tested, and a brief overview of the piloting process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 26 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols . We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Weifeng Han, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: “The production of this scoping review has been made possible through a financial contribution from Health Canada. The views expressed herein are the views of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of Health Canada.” Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. Please provide a complete Data Availability Statement in the submission form, ensuring you include all necessary access information or a reason for why you are unable to make your data freely accessible. If your research concerns only data provided within your submission, please write "All data are in the manuscript and/or supporting information files" as your Data Availability Statement. 4. Please include a separate caption for each figure in your manuscript. 5. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The issue of access to palliative care for people from diverse languages and backgrounds is an important one. This paper focuses on where there is discordance between the professional caregivers and patients and the problems that might arise for good quality palliative care (or indeed receiving any palliative care). It is a very useful review article that is clearly written and comprehensive. I look forward to its publication so I can use it in my own research. Reviewer #2: Review of PONE-D-24-51369 Effects of Language Discordance on the Experience of Palliative Care: A Scoping Review This scoping review examines articles relating to language discordance in palliative care, published between Jan 2010 and Feb 2024, in English and French. It focuses on the experiences of palliative care recipients whose language does not match that of their care providers. Based on the literature, language discordance appears to have negative effects on palliative care, end of life care, hospice care, and advance care planning. This scoping review can prove a valuable addition to the literature. There are a few details that would strengthen the paper. 1. What was the rationale for conducting a scoping review rather than another type of knowledge synthesis? 2. The information on which authors made decisions on article selection was presented in the Limitations section. A brief description should be placed in the Methods section. How were article selection decisions made? How were differences in decisions between the authors resolved? 3. Please add details on the data charting and extraction process. Was this done by one researcher or more? Was the data extraction spreadsheet pilot tested? Please describe that process. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy . Reviewer #1: Yes: Adjunct Professor Rosemary Jill Leonard Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/ . PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org . Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321075.r002
Revision 1
5 Feb 2025 Author Response We were pleased with the first reviewer’s very positive feedback on our manuscript, as well as with the thoughtful comments of the second reviewer. Below, you will see the reviewers’ comments in bold, followed by our responses and location of changes in the revised manuscript. We believe that these revisions have greatly strengthened the manuscript. 1. What was the rationale for conducting a scoping review rather than another type of knowledge synthesis? We have revised the text to present the rationale and justification for conducting a scoping review (versus a systematic review); see Lines 107-111 at the very beginning of the “Methods” section. Synthesis of the literature was conducted using a scoping approach, as it aligned well with our research goal of exploring and mapping out the current literature. With the goal of identifying and synthesizing the broad, heterogeneous range of study designs and findings, our scoping review will be used to inform future research priorities in language discordance in palliative care [14, 15]. To provide a more structured methodological approach, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) Checklist was used to guide reporting of the scoping review procedures and findings [15]. 2. The information on which authors made decisions on article selection was presented in the Limitations section. A brief description should be placed in the Methods section. How were article selection decisions made? How were differences in decisions between the authors resolved? We have added details to the manuscript, as suggested by the reviewer; see Lines 128-134 under ‘Eligibility Criteria’ in the Methods section. The first author led the search, selection process, and data extraction with the support of a Librarian and the second author. Using the mutually developed search terms, the first author performed initial searches and title reviews, documenting reasons for exclusion. The second author reviewed all decisions; any disagreements were discussed and decisions (to include or exclude) were approved by both. The same process was followed through the abstract reviews. We did not experience any disagreements in decision-making and tended to air on the side of inclusion if we questioned the relevance of an article. 3. Please add details on the data charting and extraction process. Was this done by one researcher or more? Was the data extraction spreadsheet pilot tested? Please describe that process. We agree with this suggestion and have added details related to the initial data items for extraction as well as author roles and the data charting/extraction process; see Lines 151-161 under “Data Charting and Data Items” in the Methods section. Data charting and extraction was completed using a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet. This scoping review is part of a much larger project exploring palliative the care experiences of underserved populations, and as such, we initially worked with a pre-determined set or common set of data items for extraction: country; target population; study design, setting, participants, and characteristics; terminology and definition of care received; outcomes studied; and author-defined study limitations and next steps. The first author completed the extraction for the first ten articles (in alphabetical order by first author), and these were fully reviewed by the second author and no changes were made to the extraction. The second author completed extraction of the remaining articles. The first author identified a set of initial codes for summarizing key elements in the extracted information, which were reviewed by the second author. Inconsistences and discrepancies identified were discussed and resolved to the satisfaction of both authors. The data extraction summary included below represents the final collaborative findings of both authors. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers FINAL.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321075.r003
23 Feb 2025 Decision Letter - Antony Bayer, Editor PONE-D-24-51369R1The Effect of Language Discordance on the Experience of Palliative Care: A scoping reviewPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dookie, Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript to PLOS ONE and for your helpful responses to the previous reviewer comments. I have taken over as editor of your paper and have just one further suggestion for you to consider. On first reading your abstract, I was unsure why you were focusing on Canada in the conclusion. I then started to wonder if the scoping review only considered Canadian literature, despite the title of the paper. On reading the full manuscript, the answer became clear - but most readers will not get beyond the abstract. Your covering letter explains that the study was originally designed to explore Canadian official language minority communities but was broadened for a more robust dataset. Perhaps some wording along these lines could be included earlier in the abstract so that it is clear that your results have a relevance wider than just Canada? Therefore, we invite you to consider submitting a revised version of the manuscript that addresses this point. Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 09 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revision, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols . We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Antony Bayer Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy . Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/ . PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org . Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321075.r004
Revision 2
26 Feb 2025 Author Response We agree with your feedback, and took your advice to amend our abstract, to better reflect that our scoping review was quite broad and widely incorporated international data. You will now find this sentence, on line 36, in the “Design” section of our abstract: “This scoping review was originally designed to explore Canadian official language minority communities but was broadened to an international search for a more robust dataset.” Again, we thank you for the opportunity to submit minor revisions to our manuscript. We believe that the revised manuscript addresses the issues you have raised. We look forward to hearing from you on our revised manuscript and to working with you toward its publication. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers Feb 26.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321075.r005
2 Mar 2025 Decision Letter - Antony Bayer, Editor The Effect of Language Discordance on the Experience of Palliative Care: A scoping review PONE-D-24-51369R2 Dear Dr. Dookie, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Antony Bayer Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321075.r006
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Antony Bayer, Editor PONE-D-24-51369R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dookie, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Antony Bayer Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321075.r007

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .